The numerous responses were rather homogenous: Everyone struggles with difficult sales, low sales prices and the fear of not being able to remove the damaged wood from forests in time.
Cutting reduced considerably
More than 60% of forestry companies reduced their planned logging considerably, 11% of them even stopped the log harvest completely. Only 9% continue logging as planned.
More than 70% of respondents clearly feel the fall in demand. 28% report that they feel it extremely. A further fall in log prices goes hand in hand with this. In April, log prices decreased by 8 to 13% year on year in Austria and Southern Germany (see article “Log prices even more under pressure”).
This development can only be partly explained with the COVID-19 pandemic. It is rather the result of an excess in supply after numerous winter storms and trees broken by the snow.
In this context and in view of the impending bark beetle situation, the forestry sector criticizes the ongoing log import strategy of the domestic sawmill industry. For its part, the sawmill industry refers to interruptions in supply in winter and to natural buying radius of production sites. Last week, an accord was reached: In the future, sawmills want to buy more domestic damaged wood and reduce imports.
When it comes to log prices, the majority of forestry companies (62%) expect a further fall. 30% do not expect any changes and only 4% expect log prices to rise.
Expectations regarding the development of the business situation are particularly negative: 94% expect a negative development in the coming six months.
